Sindh set to unveil deficit budget of Rs869b today

Provincial govt expects Rs561b from the Centre as ‘federal transfers’ and Rs78b from sales tax on services

KARACHI: The Sindh government is likely to present a deficit budget with a total outlay of Rs869 billion for the fiscal 2016-17 today (Saturday).

A meeting of the provincial cabinet, held on Friday under Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah, approved the budget which is scheduled to be presented by Senior Minister for Finance Murad Ali Shah.



Sindh’s total development expenditure, sources said, might exceed Rs265 billion, including the Annual Development Plan, foreign funding and district government development packages.

The provincial government expects to receive Rs561 billion from the Centre as ‘federal transfers’ and Rs78 billion from sales tax on services which is supposed to be recovered by provincial government itself. Additionally, the provincial government is learnt to have fixed a collection target of Rs76 billion from other tax receipts.

Sources said that the Sindh government is likely to make a 10 percent increase in salaries of government employees, adding that it allocated nearly Rs75 billion for maintenance of law and order in the province.

Meanwhile, the government moved to increase the development budget of the education sector by Rs3 billion with a total outlay of Rs13 billion against an allocation of Rs10 billion in the current fiscal.

Budget 2015-16: Sindh presents Rs739b budget

Funds for health sector development were said to have been increased from Rs13 billion to Rs14.5 billion.

According to sources, Rs35 billion were set aside to deal with the ongoing energy crisis with an allocation of Rs18 billion for the Thar coal project.

The Sindh government earmarked Rs10 billion for Karachi in addition to a special package for building the city’s roads.

“Funds (earmarked) for education, special education, universities and boards will be merged under a single head, translating into a huge allocation for this sector,” an officer in the province’s finance department said.

During the meeting, officials informed the cabinet that there would be 1,777 ongoing and 996 new schemes. This, officials said, meant 80 per cent of the next budget would be utilised for completing ongoing schemes and the remaining 20 per cent for initiating new schemes.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 11^th, 2016.